Between the Lines
by Ghost Assist
Summary: Mao does the unthinkable and dives into Raspberyl's Heart. (Uncompleted/Discontinued)


**Between the Lines**

"Do you know where Mao went?" Raspberyl asks. She sighed when the Prinny shakes his head, and hurries off. "Don't run in the hallway please," she called out to it. The sound of tripping, and falling echoed throughout the hallway. Raspberyl looks down the hall to check if the Prinny is still alive,(he is) and returned to looking for her rival.

Raspberyl figured Mao would do something like this. Earlier, she invited him over to her Officer meeting. He was still the freshmen class president after all, so it would make sense to invite him. It was time for the class officers to get serious about school. First, they needed to discuss evacuation procedures for their school, since everyone got hurt the last time the school had a fire. That happened yesterday morning by the way.

It was Mao's fault, as usual. This explains Raspberyl's second topic on the officer meeting agenda. She needed to bring up Mao's experiments, and the unstable environment he works in. It was because of his carelessness that caused the fire in the first place. Even if he was a genius who calculates his every move; he makes the largest slip ups.

Unfortunately, no one bothered to show up to the meeting anyway. Raspberyl wasn't shocked that no one came; however, she still was expecting Mao. Usually, if Raspberyl invited him to anything, he'd show up an hour late, and say something like, "Yeah, I invited myself to this, because I didn't want your delinquent ways corrupting the youth."

In the end, Raspberyl went out to go find the class officers herself. She managed to find Salvatore, and Master Big Star around the campus. She warned them about missing the meeting, and how uncool it was to do so.

The first place Raspberyl decided to look for Mao was in fact Mao's room. Usually he'd be hiding, or playing video games, but when Raspberyl went in earlier he wasn't there. After searching throughout most of the campus, or at least the places where Mao tends to hang out, Raspberyl decided to end her search where she began it. Pretty smart, right?

Raspberyl thinks that she would be a really awesome detective, who handles everything in a super badass way. Catch the villain, and show him the true powers of caring, compassion and understanding!

Anyway, the demon makes her way to her rival's room. She finds the door slightly ajar, and curiously poked her head in. She opened the door, and stood at the entrance.

She peered around the room, and saw that Almaz and Sapphire have taken to Mao's comic collection. Some of the comics are stacked in the middle of Almaz and Sapphire. The remaining are scattered all over the floor, creating a huge mess. The human couple is sitting down on the floor, leisurely browsing through the myriad of hero comics. At one point, Almaz points to a part of the comic in Sapphire's hands, and muttered something along the lines of "Yeah, you'd like her. She's kinda like ... don't you think?"

The couple doesn't seem to see Raspberyl, much less notice her coming in. She knocks on the door behind her to draw attention.

"Oh, Miss Beryl, when did you get here," Almaz says. He gets up from the floor and turned to pull Sapphire up. He extended his hand towards her. "Princess, may I assist you?"

Sapphire laughed lightly and replied, "Do you really have to ask permission, Almaz?"

"Of course, I mean, no. I'm sorry, I thought it'd be pretty romantic do to the whole hand thing and stuff," Almaz said awkwardly as he pulls Sapphire up with ease. The couple giggles and smiles at each other. Almaz looks back towards Raspberyl as Sapphire began picking up the comics from the floor.

"Do you need anything, Miss Beryl? Oh! I forgot about yesterday's homework, um, I'll go do it right now," Almaz said. He rushed to the Mao's small table and fishes for his pocket for a pen.

"Oh, don't worry about it, there's no class today. I'm just looking for Mao."

Almaz looked relieved. He sighed and returns to Sapphire's side. Raspberyl approached the two, and began picking up the books as well. Card Captor Sakura, Sailor Moon, Puella Madoka Magica... The first book portrays a young female protagonist with killer outfits, and an awesome staff. From the looks of it, she captures monsters with a friend of hers. The second book has a group of older female protagonist. It's similar to the first, but there is more of these crime fighting heroines. The last book appears to lack the cool clothes. It seems grim, but it probably gets better. Raspberyl can't put her finger on it, but the main protagonist seems familiar. Oh well.

After fixing up the whole room, Raspberyl inquires, "Aren't these books different from the type of comics Mao usually reads?"

"Yeah, Pr- Sapphire and I were just discussing that earlier," Almaz explains.

Sapphire hums, "We hypothesize that maybe Sir Mao is getting interested in this sort of thing~" Sapphire smiled at Almaz, and Raspberyl could honestly say, there was a look of mischief in the royal's eyes. Almaz appeared to have opened his mouth to say something, but let out a long breath instead. He nodded to Sapphire then winked.

Raspberyl coughed, and the two humans broke their weird inside conversation. It sucks when everyone in the room knows something that you don't, but Raspberyl isn't the type to pry.

"Actually, we saw him by the Heart Bank," Sapphire replies.

"He looked pretty upset about something," Almaz added.

"Jeez, I wish you guys could have told me sooner," Raspberyl whined. Even though she really wanted to drop what she was doing to hunt Mao down, she had her priorities straight. Being the delinquent she is, Raspberyl stuck around and cleaned with the couple.

"We should have figured that you came in here to look for Mao, Miss Beryl," said Sapphire with a smile.

"W-Well of course, it's his room! Duh," Raspberyl snapped. Jeez, humans are so weird. Just because two demons are close, and have known each other for like a thousand years, does not mean everything they do dealing with each other have some hidden romantic intentions.

Sapphire smiled and hummed," I'm sorry Miss Beryl, it's sort of fun teasing you. I can see why Mao enjoys it so much."

"He enjoys it because he likes being an inconvenience to everyone," Almaz sighs. "Since we're done here, I guess we could help you look for Mao, Miss Beryl."

"Yeah, it's the least we could do for forcing you to clean up our mess," Sapphire said. The human duo was about to exit the room, when Raspberyl says "Now, now, it's perfectly okay," Raspberyl waved at them to stop walking. She shook her head," My job as a delinquent involves stuff like this. I wouldn't have been a good role model to my followers if I simply walked away from a messy room."

Raspberyl took the chance and walked ahead of the couple. "You guys don't have to come with me. I'd rather go alone this time. Mao is in for a long lecture, and being the considerate demon I am, I think you two shouldn't really go through that." Raspberyl said with a huff.

"Well, she does make a point, Princess. Let's go," Almaz says impatiently. If the human couple did tag along, they'd definitely be in the middle of a strife between Raspberyl and Mao . Chances are, it won't be pretty and they're going to have to pry the two from kicking each other's butts to another netherworld.

"Alright, alright, I get that you don't want anyone getting in between your lover's quarrel. I sort a wish I could see it though. You two are so cute together," Sapphire cries.

"We are not having a lover's quarrel. We are not lovers!" Raspberyl exclaimed. Her voice pitched higher than it normally would, and her face turned a bright pink. Raspberyl could feel herself breathing unevenly, and a headache coming on. For the first time in a long while, Raspberyl felt uncomfortable. Maybe it is because Sapphire won't quit with these harassing comments. However, Sapphire has done this several times in the past, but her remarks never bothered Raspberyl before. Has something changed?

"Teasing," Sapphire says. "Sorry, I can't help it."

Raspberyl's blush grew darker. She almost spaced out there. "Gosh, this makes me exhausted. Just go before I lose my cool again," Raspberyl moaned. "I hope I'm not being disrespectful in anyway, but I really can't handle arguing with you about this."

"I'm a pretty persistent person, aren't I? But you're right," Sapphire nods to Raspberyl. "It's lunch time anyway, so Almaz and I are going to grab something to eat. "

"Thank goodness you don't want to go," Almaz said. He leads the way to the hallway, and linked Sapphire's and his arm together. He watched as Raspberyl locks the room from the inside, and steps out."See you later Miss Beryl, and good luck finding Lord Mao," Almaz said as he and Sapphire took off.

"I heard Master Champloo has been around starting cook-offs with the culinary students," Almaz whispers to his wife.

Raspberyl didn't hear the princess's reply, but she is positive that the two plan to crash the event for a taste of Champloo's legendary meals.

Back to work.

When Raspberyl found Mao at the Heart Bank she was really, really surprise. Here's why.

He was still at the Heart Bank like how Almaz/Sapphire said he would be two hours ago.

He hasn't been to the Heart Bank since he opened his heart.

He was coming out of Raspberyl's Heart.

What happened next was a complete blur. The only thing Raspberyl could remember was throwing herself at Mao so she could smack him for violating her. To no surprise, he began fighting back immediately. They didn't pull out their weapons, or use any type of magic. This fight was raw, vicious. It felt pretty good.

Mao is the type of person who would kick a demon when he's down. He's the type to cheat, and lie, and do all kinds of evil stuff (because that's just who he is.) But he's a demon of routine and rules. He unknowingly goes by rules he establishes himself. He creates boundaries, and in a sense, has his own order. He hates changing the status quo, and would rather keep controlled environment despite his love of chaos.

With Raspberyl, he has his own set of rules, his own set of boundaries. He knows what he shouldn't do when it comes to Raspberyl and what he should do. In a sense, Raspberyl was the same when it came right down to it. Change was different, and right now, Mao was going change everything with just one variable.

Mao was never supposed to go in her heart.

It's hypocrisy, Raspberyl knows, but even Mao understands her Heart is completely off limits to him, and to everyone. Despite being a delinquent, despite being a good student, despite being a valedictorian, Raspberyl couldn't let anyone in.

They had fights before, but even magic wouldn't be able to fix this mess.


End file.
